Managing Strategic Surprise: Lessons from Risk Management and Risk Assessment

by Paul J. Bracken (Editor)

The scope and applicability of risk management have expanded greatly over the past decade. Banks, corporations, and public agencies employ its new technologies both in their daily operations and long-term investments. It would be unimaginable today for a global bank to operate without such systems in place. Similarly, many areas of public management, from NASA to the Centers for Disease Control, have recast their programs using risk management strategies. It is particularly striking, therefore, that such thinking has failed to penetrate the field of national security policy. Venturing into uncharted waters, Managing Strategic Surprise brings together risk management experts and practitioners from different fields with internationally-recognized national security scholars to produce the first systematic inquiry into risk and its applications in national security. The contributors examine whether advance risk assessment and management techniques can be successfully applied to address contemporary national security challenges.

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not too fond of the opinions and writings of co-editor Ian Bremmer, but this is an interesting work, though some are a little too optimistic with a new way of managing risk.

Corporations and Engineers sometimes view low-probability events of risk, much differently than some in the National Security field...

You might win a lot of the struggles, but you could really crap out, on the most impotrtant ones.
Which is shown with black swan events with Economic Risks....

Ellsberg did a lot of work on measuring risk when some unknowns are in the situation, and how things go sideways...


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Not still an art, not yet a science we have much to learn about understanding and responding to strategic surprise. From finance to government, strategic surprise has been our most challenging and often our most opportune phenomenon.

This book has more enlightenment per page on the subject; it should be read by all of you whose lives, jobs and fortunes depend on fathoming surprise – almost all of us!

Thomas R. Pickering
Former Under Secretary of State and Career Ambassador of the United States

[Special Assistant to Secretaries of State William P. Rogers and Henry Kissinger]

[When Pickering served as United States Ambassador to Jordan in the mid-1970s, King Hussein declared him "the best American ambassador I've dealt with."]

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A superb collection of our best thought leaders and a welcome return of academia to the critical discussion of how to think about strategic surprise in the 21st Century. The authors thoughtfully capture the opportunities of risk management and its associated analytical paradigm as the next generation process to contend with strategic surprise.

Of considerable note for further review is the suggestion that the United States has a competitive advantage in information technology and agile military response which could potentially serve as the framework for a successful interactive process to prevent strategic surprise.

A must read for all those who seek to integrate risk management and risk assessment into an effective process to prevent strategic surprise for generations to come.

Kenneth A. Minihan
Lieutenant General, United States Air Force (Retired)
Former Director, National Security Agency

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Amazone

Risky Business
8/10

The principal theme of this book is that risk management must be integral to any national security strategy. To explore this theme the editors of the book have compiled a series of essays by various subject matter experts to explore risk management and its corollary warning intelligence as they affect national security. Like all compilations some essays are better than others.

The lead essays on "How to Build a Warning System" and "Intelligence Management as Risk Management" are also the weakest of the lot. In both a basic misunderstanding of intelligence processes and capabilities is apparent.

Remarkably both also manage to misread the conclusions of Roberta Wohlstetter in her book, "Pearl Harbor: warning and decision" which although it does emphasize the failure of intelligence on that occasion, it also makes it clear that the failure as a part of a wider breakdown of the U.S. national defense system. In both essays one is left with conclusion that both authors (Bracken and Arad) have not done their homework.

There are also two essays in this book that are absolutely first rate and well worth the price of admission. "Managing Energy Security Risks" by Van Der Linde does a masterful job explaining the complex issues of energy and national security in a global economy.

And "Political Stability Frameworks and Country Risks" does an outstanding job of explaining the risks and opportunities of globalization for national security.

The editors of this book are to be commended for raising the important issue of risk management in the formulation of national security policy.

Even if not perfect the book lays a firm foundation for further studies on this important issue.

Retired Reader

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8/10